April 24, 2024
Presented by Sr. Jane Wakahiu, Sr. Joyce Meyer, Tom Fox and Gail DeGeorge. Professor Margaret (Peggy) Thompson moderated the session.
Conversation
Global Sisters Report is 10! Over the past decade, GSR in conjunction with National Catholic Reporter, has been focused on fulfilling its mission to create "a dynamic online community that reports on and gives voice to women religious around the world."
During this Witness & Grace session, NCR CEO and Publisher Joe Ferullo gave a short introduction. Then we were joined by Sr. Jane Wakahiu, Sr. Joyce Meyer, Tom Fox and Gail DeGeorge. Professor Margaret (Peggy) Thompson moderated the session.
Resources
- From GSR Editor, Gail DeGeorge: 10 years of a 'great adventure' at Global Sisters Report
- GSR anniversary content
- Available for pre-order: GSR's book, Wisdom from the Global Sisterhood: Contemporary Reflections by Catholic Sisters
Presenters
Sister Jane Wakahiu is a member of the Institute of the Little Sisters of St. Francis, Kenya, and director of the Catholic Sisters Program for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. She is the former director of the African Catholic Sisters Education Collaborative, which conducts educational activities in nine African countries, including Nigeria and South Sudan, where the ravages of war and other human tragedies continue to significantly affect millions of people. Wakahiu also has taught and administrated at a girls’ high school, facilitated leadership workshops for teachers, and served in leadership of the Catholic Women Association in Kenya.
Joyce Meyer is a Sister of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and served as executive director of the Conrad N. Hilton Fund for Sisters, a grant-making organization supporting the works of Catholic sisters globally, from 1999 through October 2011. She worked for five years as a missionary in Zambia, where she taught English at a secretarial college and served as executive director for the Zambia Association of Sisterhoods, the national conference of women religious. She is on the boards of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Medicines for Humanity and the International Foundation of the Good Shepherd Sisters and has served as international liaison to women religious for Global Sisters Report since January 2014.
Gail DeGeorge became editor of Global Sisters Report in January 2016. She splits her time between the Washington D.C. area and South Florida, and has spent much of her career reporting on economic, business and labor market issues for national and regional publications. She's taught eighth grade and Confirmation classes for more than 10 years at parishes in South Florida and Silver Spring, Maryland, helped revitalize the Rosary Guild ministry at St. Bonaventure in Davie, Florida, and served on the parish council, volunteered at a food pantry and other parish activities.
Thomas C. Fox is NCR's editor/publisher emeritus. Fox was NCR editor and/or publisher most years between 1980 and 2015, then again in 2018-19. His reports from Vietnam appeared in the earliest issues of National Catholic Reporter. He has also reported for The Washington Star, the Detroit Free Press, TIME magazine and The New York Times.
Margaret S. Thompson was trained as a political historian, with a focus on the nineteenth-century United States and, particularly, the Congress. Recently, Professor Thompson’s work has focused on the history of American Catholic nuns. She has written and lectured extensively on the subject. Her research is from an explicitly feminist perspective, emphasizing the agency and social significance of sisters to American religious and secular history. Her forthcoming book, "The Yoke of Grace: American Nuns and Social Change, 1809-1917," is under contract with Oxford University Press.
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